M26 spans about 22 w:light years across and is at a distance of 5,000 light years from the w:Earth. The brightest star is of magnitude 11.9 and the age of this cluster has been calculated to be 89 million years. An interesting feature of M26 is a region of low w:star density near the nucleus, most likely caused by an obscuring cloud of w:interstellar matter between us and the cluster.